


Things Have Changed (for me)

by CantSpeakFae



Series: Once More With Glitter [15]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Dubious Morality, Extremely Dubious Consent, F/M, Fake Marriage, Heavy Angst, In which Giles almost faints at hearing that his ex-boyfriend has a husband, M/M, Pining, Shock collar wedding rings and other fun things, Three guesses who Randall is thinking about when he says "Love" and the first two don't count
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-24
Updated: 2018-10-24
Packaged: 2019-08-07 00:35:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16398065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CantSpeakFae/pseuds/CantSpeakFae
Summary: Giles blinks rapidly as he feels the earth shifting beneath his feet. Apparently, he's the only one, though, as nobody else seems to be experiencing the earthquake that's currently leaving him dizzy and unbalanced...ORDeacon shows up at the library, with Randall in tow, and makes an announcement or two that shake up Giles' already unbalanced morning.





	Things Have Changed (for me)

“Children…”

Giles calls out after them, part warning part… immediate-onset adult apathy. With a sigh, he clears the tea things and breas himself a proper pot - loose tea, thank you quite kindly - and sits down with a few volumes of fantasy lore, hoping he’ll find even the tiniest hint of where to find the information he needs.

Concentration is difficult, however. His mind keeps turning back to Randall, and worrying about Randall meeting with his father.

By the time Giles wrestles his thoughts back to the research, he realizes that it’s far past the time he usually sees Jenny, and now he’s wondering about her.

Giles sips his now lukewarm tea and tries to figure out how he’s managed to completely lose control over everything in his life by 8:23 in the morning.

As though summoned by his thoughts, alone, Jenny comes bursting through the doors of the library. She’s noticeably frazzled, struggling to juggle her stack of graded papers, her third coffee of the day, and a clipboard of “dangerously” close to failing students that Snyder had shoved at her with one or two vaguely worded suggestions about cutting “athletes” slack in her class.

It's through sheer luck that she manages to keep her grip until she can set most of it down onto the table and then turn to Rupert, breathless, flushed, and trying to apologize before she can even really breathe properly.

“Sorry! Sorry, I had… a weird morning. You wouldn’t believe the conversation I happened to overhear when I was getting coffee. It was - was completely unimportant because that’s not what I came to talk to you about.”

She stops and takes a deep breath. Her mind and heart are still racing, but she forces herself to smile.

“...How are you?”

The smile fades, slightly, He’d been so… confused when they’d spoken last, on the phone.

“How’s your uh… friend?”

Giles face lights up with a pleasantly surprised smile as Jenny blusters into the library, and doesn’t even fade as he valiantly struggles to parse the thoroughly American density of her speech… until she mentions Randall. He sits back in his chair, and pulls his glasses from his face to polish them thoughtfully.

“Ah, he’s alright. For now, anyway… I hope…”

He mutters that last bit under his breath and puts his glasses back on.

“It’s nice to see you, though, Jenny. I had just been thinking about you.”

He peers up at her, curiosity in his cool, blue eyes.

“Do you know anything about faeries? The Fae, I mean?”

“Fae? Like… tinkerbell?”

Jenny’s slightly disappointed by the subject change, having been anticipating a much lengthier conversation, but apparently that mystery is going to _stay_ mysterious for the time being.

“If we’re talking Peter Pan, then I know they’re born of a child's laughter and die if you stop believing in them. Other than that…” She shakes her head, lifting her shoulders in an apologetic shrug. “Why? We’re not being attacked by anything, are we?”

She has a hard time imagining fairies being dangerous. But on the Hellmouth, just about anything is possible.

Giles looks disappointed, but not surprised.

“Not as far as I’m aware… Buffy brought over a new “friend” in need of help, and I’m afraid I’m at an utter loss.”

He sighs, then shakes his head, as if to clear it.

“You mentioned an odd conversation?”

“A new friend, huh?” Jenny asks, raising her eyebrows.

Buffy does have the tendency… adopts new friends like strays, always working with a group of people around her. It’s weirdly sweet in most cases, but less so now, she assumes.

“I could google it. See what comes up.” She offers, halfway in jest, and halfway meaning it. She knows Rupert’s aversion to computers means that he wouldn’t even think to peruse the web for answers, but what could it hurt?

Of course, all of those thoughts disappear in the instant he asks her about the conversation that she overheard.

“It was…”

She settles down onto the edge of the table, gesturing vaguely with her cup of coffee, trying to find the right words to explain it. And a way to do so without sounding paranoid. There was no guarantee that it was anything important. But there was a tense feeling in her gut - the kind that generally came before a new villain comes to leave their mark on Sunnydale. They were due for one, weren’t they.

“...Weird.” She says, finally, settling on a word. “I got the sense that at least one of them was in trouble. And the way they were all talking… it was like one of those low-budget spy films. They kept talking about jobs and organizations…”

She takes a sip of her coffee, trying to make herself pause and find some semblance of coherency because she can’t follow her own train of thought past the still present feeling that she’d witnessed something shady going on.

“I almost thought I recognized one, but I couldn’t quite place his face. It…”

Realization washes over Jenny in a sudden rush of cold like she’d just stepped out in front of an air-conditioner. Oh. Oh!

“Oh!” She says, out loud, nearly throwing her cup of coffee. She catches it in the last instant and sets it down, turning to look at Rupert with equal parts understanding and guilt.

“I think… I think it might have been your father, actually.”

“Ah-ha!”

A triumphant little yelp comes from the doorway, shattering the tense silence that had been left in the wake of Jenny’s startling revelation. And when eyes turn to him, Deacon can be seen valiantly repressing the urge to punch at the air in his delight, turning the knee-jerk reaction from that of childish glee to accusation when he points at Jenny, couching once with embarrassment and then clearing his voice so that he can speak normally when he says -

“I knew you were eavesdropping on us. And you!”

He turns around, rounding on the slight, blonde man that’s looking behind him with an expression of perfect irritation.

“You said I was being paranoid. But, there you are.”

Randall meets Deacon’s gaze, though it’s hard to tell through his sunglasses, his lips twitching with irritation as he’s rounded on by a man who seems to have been momentarily possessed by the spirit of a particularly yippy poodle, poising and demanding attention for his efforts.

Slowly, Randall reaches up and slides the glasses off of his face, the natural light still stings - he wonders if that will ever go away - but it’s not so bad that he can’t give Deacon the full effect of his glare. His eyes haven’t glowed gold, yet, but his voice is icy and ageless all the same.

“I told you not to talk.”

His gaze shifts, expression softening by an age-old habit that not even fifteen years apart could break, when it falls onto Rupert’s face, and unease takes place of the irritation. Unease and just the faintest pangs of upset. It’s been a long, long, time since Randall has been truly upset about anything. After a while, he grew numb. Nothing new inspired much feeling in him at all. Whatever tortures Ronald could think to provide, whatever pain, whatever loneliness, whatever isolation… it was all par for the course. He could get used to it. He could _adapt_.

But this wasn’t like that.

Randall had no intention of allowing Deacon to drag him here - to Rupert’s fucking _work_ of all places - so soon in the aftermath of their conversation, but here he was, anyway. Prodded along by the reminder that the two of them needed to settle into their new “lives” as soon as possible to begin their “mission”... and by a few shocks from the joke of a wedding band on his ring finger, effectively cubing his impulses to bend Deacon to his will.

The shocks hurt.

They hurt a _lot_.

More than Randall had been anticipating. His eyes had even welled up, a bit, and he couldn't remember the last time he actually cried. Maybe not since he’d first woken up in that cage, in the dark, alone and confused with nothing but distorted memories and a tingle of stolen magic under his skin.

But now, he was wondering if it still might hurt less than having to explain the new situation… all before _noon_.

It’s a lot to think about. Randall doesn’t _want_ to think about it. So, he just glares at Deacon again.

“So, you know. Shut up.”

Deacon hasn’t known Randall very long. Certainly, long enough to agree to a faux marriage of sorts, as a means to explain their presence in Sunnydale, but not nearly long enough to notice the pain in his dark eyes. Not long enough to see the turmoil that churns in the depths of his gaze, not long enough to care that this shaken, beaten PTSD riddled man can’t stand the sound of his voice. And, certainly not long enough to feel any need to humour his commands out of fear, respect, or anything else.

“Don’t be rude.”

He says, irritably, his thumb stroking absently over the switch in his pocket that will activate the ring on Randall’s hand and send a series of electric currents through his body should he continue to prove himself to be… difficult to manage.

Deacon doesn’t like doing it. But he’s not so fool as to trust in the innocence of face that Eyghon wears, now, and he won’t fall victim to its allure.

But he doesn’t press the switch yet. It’s enough for both of them to know that he could.

“We’re not staying long.” He says, lowly, to Randall before turning back to look at who he can only assume is Rupert Giles… and the eavesdropper, of course.

“We - well, I - only popped by to introduce myself. You’ll forgive me if I keep my distance and don’t offer to shake…?

Deacon had already seen what Rupert did to Ronald’s hand. He’s not interested in getting near enough to allow the same thing to happen to him.

Giles rises to his feet with a startled lurch to see Randall...in his library...now...  

But the soft, "pleased to see you" expression bleeds from his face as he takes in the arrogant, obnoxious person accompanying his friend, and a frown of confusion furrows his brow.

“I, er...ah, that is...uh...rather...I...er, Jenny, this is Randall, my old friend…”

Manners remain where all other sensible thoughts flee, and Giles begins the introductions.  
  
“Randall, this is Jenny, er, Miss Calendar, my, er, esteemed colleague.”

Giles frowns at the yippy person.

“I'm afraid I have no idea who YOU are...?”

“He's no one.”

Randall says, keeping his hand hidden in his pocket. Any chance he had at steeling his nerves enough to actually tell Rupert that he's going to be wearing a shock-collar in the form of a wedding ring from now on was lost the second he saw that gentle expression on his friend's face. A violent urge sweeps through him; a visceral need to protect him from this for as long as possible.  
  
And his gaze flits to the woman standing beside him. Jenny, he'd called her. He waves with his right hand - it feels odd because he is left-handed - and carefully keeps his distance. 

“It's uh... nice to meet you.”

“It's uh…”

Jenny blinks at the short, fair-haired man standing across from them and is momentarily at a loss. 

He doesn't look like he  _belongs_ there, she thinks with a purse of her lips. Not standing beside that tweed-clad, loud mouth. He doesn't look _anything_ like any Watcher she's ever seen, either. He's cooler, somehow. Steeled against the world and the people in it. Jenny wasn't sure what to expect from anyone who invoked such a lost tone from Rupert, but Randall wasn't at all what she thought he'd be.   
  
She recovers from her shock, quickly, and smiles.   
  
“Nice to meet you too, Randall. Rupert's uh -”   
  
She stops speaking abruptly, unsure if she should say if he's told her about him.

“The librarian, here?”

Deacon supplies, incorrectly guessing what she was going to say.  
  
“Yes, we know.”   
  
Deacon steps past Randall - steps in /front/ of him, really. Blocking him from view, like a guard dog or the jealous, new owner of something shiny. He doesn't know how much is safe to say in front of the woman, so he chooses to lead with caution and falls into the lie.   
  
“I'm Deacon Andrews. Randall's uh... husband. We're just popping in to talk with Rupert. I've been looking forward to meeting him.”

Randall immediately starts to hiss. “Oh, you _motherfu-_ ”

“H-husband...?”

Giles blinks rapidly as he feels the earth shifting beneath his feet. Apparently, he's the only one, though, as nobody else seems to be experiencing the earthquake that's currently leaving him dizzy and unbalanced...  
  
“Randall, you never said...you...you were…”

“I'm not! I mean, not really. Not, like legally. Or even morally. In fact, it's pretty much the worst - oh, don't look like… It's not _that.”_

Randall's rambling.  
  
He can't help it. Fifteen years since he last saw him and his heart still sinks at that look on his face.

“It’s not...I…”

“ _Sweetheart.”_ Deacon interrupts, grabbing Randall by his free hand and squeezing. Hard. He smiles at the other two, as brightly as he can. “He's still in _shock_ , is all. Raised Catholic - still unwilling to accept the idea that someone loves him and that our union is _not_ a sin. I'm doing the best I can with him. But he's stubborn.”

He squeezes Randall's hand even harder when he says "shock". Just a reminder.

“Rupert... are you alright?”

Jenny reaches out, instinctively, to grab onto his arm when he starts to wobble like the floor is shaking. She squeezes him, supportively, concern in her expression… and uncertainty as to why he’s acting like someone just threw a brick at him.  
  
“What's wrong?”

“N-nothing, I'm just…”

Giles regains his balance and gently pets Jenny's steadying hand until she removes it.  
  
“I'm just rather taken aback that I missed the ceremony… I believe congratulations are in order?”   
  
He forces a pleasant smile, but cannot make it reach his eyes.

“Oh, please don't -”

Randall's stomach twists and his mouth suddenly feels gritty, like he's taking a bite of sand. The thought of being _congratulated_ on this... that Rupert's smiling pleasantly at them, like it's good news...   
  
It's a blow that he hadn't been bracing or and it takes everything he has left to scramble to collect his scattered senses and remind himself of the big picture, here.   
  
He agreed to this.   
  
He knew the cost. What it would mean. Being totally disgusted with himself, trapped in a charade of a relationship where the only constant was pain? He'd done that before. He could do it again.   
  
And it'd be worth it, in the end, right? This was how to keep Rupert and his Slayer, safe. From the Council. From Deacon. From himself. This was the only way to learn what he could about Ronald's plans and give the impression that he - that the monster he was, now - is contained.   
  
So, he adjusts his panicked plea and forces his own smile, not quite meeting Rupert's gaze, anymore.   
  
“- don't uh, feel like you have to. Seriously. It was so...sudden, I know. But uh…”   
  
He swallows. hard, his smile never faltering. He even squeezes Deacon's hand, back.   
  
“...Love makes you do crazy things.”

**Author's Note:**

> I know, I know. Cliffhanger. I'm a jerk. But that was just a such a good line to end on. I promise not to do that too often.


End file.
